Nichi Vendola

Nicola "Nichi" Vendola (26 August 1958-) was President of Apulia from 4 April 2005 to 1 June 2015, succeeding Raffaele Fitto and preceding Michele Emiliano; he was also a Chamber of Deputies member from 1992 to 2005 and in 2015. He was previously a communist politician before going on to found the Left Ecology Freedom party.

Biography
Nichi Vendola was born in Terlizzi, Bari, Italy on 26 August 1958, and he joined the Italian Communist Party's youth wing at the age of fourteen. He studied literature and wrote a dissertation about the poetry of Pier Paolo Pasolini, and he later became a journalist and a gay rights activist, becoming a member of the National Secretariat of the Italian Communist Party. In 1991, he assisted with the establishment of the Communist Refoundation Party when the PCI planned to join the Democratic Party of the Left, and he served in the Chamber of Deputies from 1992 to 2005. In 2005, he was elected President of Apulia in a shocking election; a homosexual communist won an election in a strongly conservative and Catholic region. He served until 2015, when he was again elected to the Chamber of Deputies. He also led the Left Ecology Freedom from 2010 until its 2016 dissolution.